Fairly early on in the progression of my mother’s
Alzheimer’s Disease, she could no longer follow stories
or read books. Within a short time, she lost the ability
to retain the meaning of even two consecutive sentences.
Eventually she was robbed of nearly all ordinary language
and speaking skills, though she continues even now to be
quite engaging and talkative, using nonsense words that she
makes up as she goes along.

“The mingleman is faleetered nosty?” she will ask me, and I’ll
reply, “Yes, he is,” and we will converse like this for quite a
long time. Periodically, out of the blue, some real English will suddenly surprise
all of us: “I’m glad I had you,” she said to me one day,
and I was stunned, for ordinarily she is unaware that she has been married
66 years and has two grown children. Yet she always seems to know and love
my brother and me, whoever we are!

One day a few years ago I had an astounding
revelation: Mom was thumbing through a magazine, looking
at the pictures, and I heard her reciting the big print aloud.
My mother can still read, I realized. Maybe not a book; maybe
not a paragraph, or even a full sentence; but she could still
read individual words and short phrases.

I tried in vain to find books for Alzheimer's patients, an “adult picture
book” for
someone like her. Something simple, with high quality photos
of familiar objects, people and nature, with short, easy-to-read
captions. A book in which each page would be complete unto
itself, requiring no power of recall.

Blue Sky, White Clouds is
the result. I hope and pray that it will provide Alzheimer’s
patients and other memory-challenged adults, along with their
loved ones and caregivers, the opportunity to spend much
quality, quiet time together, looking through Blue
Sky, White Clouds and reading it aloud.

As I write this, my mother, Manya Sobel, has
had Alzheimer’s
disease for nearly 17 years, and remains at home and was under the
loving and devoted, constant care of my father, Max Sobe for 13 years, with help from aides, until he passed away in Nov 2017. She is still home.
May she and the millions of patients and caregiversin a similar position
be blessed to live peacefully with this very difficult and
challenging illness.